Come Death and High Water (George & Molly Palmer-Jones)

by Ann Cleeves

  “Thank you very much. Sorry to have put you to so much trouble. I seem to have been wrong about that. I managed to see Albert Todd and he was able to clear it up for me.”

  “No trouble, sir.”

  “Do you think that Superintendent Savage would be able to see me today?”

  Connibear looked fixedly at George, as if he wanted to add extra significance to his words.

  “I think he would, sir. I think he might be having … second thoughts. Not about being able to get a conviction. No trouble about that. But in his own mind. And then Martindale’s resignation shook him.”

  “Martindale was the young uniformed officer who was there when Pamela Marshall was killed?”

  “That’s right, sir. But it wasn’t his fault. He shouldn’t take responsibility for it. He coped well enough. As well as any of us would have done. Mr. Savage was a bit hard on him at the time. He said that Martindale was soft because he believed young Mardle’s story, and now I think the superintendent’s feeling a bit bad about it. He doesn’t say anything, of course, but I think that’s how things are. I don’t think Martindale will change his mind however things turn out. He says he wants to train to be a teacher. Good luck to him. The pay’s awful, but the hours are better. You’ve got to be cut out for this job. Look, I’ve got to go. But you ask to see the superintendent. I’m sure he’ll help you.”

  He hurried away.

  Savage agreed to see Palmer-Jones immediately. He was busy enough. There were files and reports in chaotic disarray on his desk, but he had been staring at each of them in turn all morning without doing any constructive work. He was troubled. It was not, as Connibear had said, that he was worried that a jury would fail to convict Mardle. There was evidence enough for that. Even Mardle’s solicitor admitted as much. It was that the boy was beginning to impress him. Nicholas seemed to have matured during his period in the police cells; he had developed a confidence that eventually his innocence would be recognized. He was irritated, occasionally, by Savage’s questions but he stuck to his story. Savage’s theory depended on the boy’s being psychiatrically disturbed, and the superintendent was beginning to believe that fundamentally he was immensely sane. Savage was not afraid of admitting that he was wrong. He had sufficient arrogance to believe that anyone else could have made a similar mistake. The problem was that he was not sure that he was wrong. Mardle was still the most likely murderer. Savage felt too that he had lost touch with the case. He was no longer sufficiently involved, he had no emotional response to the other suspects.

  Connibear had told Savage that George Palmer-Jones was still on Gillibry, and that he had asked him to make inquiries about Todd Leisure Enterprises. Savage had been curious. He had hoped that Connibear’s inquiries would result in something positive, but when nothing suspicious was discovered, he put that line of investigation from his mind. When the desk sergeant informed him that Palmer-Jones wished to see him, he thought briefly that he had come simply to pursue this line of inquiry, and the thought disappointed him. Connibear was a conscientious and reliable policeman, and if the Todds had been committing some fraud, he would have found it out. Then he remembered Palmer-Jones’s power, his reputation. He would have recognized Connibear’s ability too. He would have come for more than that.

  When George Palmer-Jones saw Savage he was immediately reassured. The man might follow his own theories over-enthusiastically, but he was no fool. Savage stood to greet him.

  “I’m glad to see you,” he said. “Very glad. I’m sorry that I was too busy to see you earlier in the week. Connibear was able to help?”

  “Indirectly,” George said. “Albert Todd must have heard that he was asking questions on my behalf. He sent for me and gave me some very useful information himself.”

  “Did he?” Savage said. “I talked to him, but perhaps I didn’t handle him properly. He’s quite a character.”

  He showed George to a seat and waited, giving him his whole attention.

  “I think,” George said, “that I know now who killed Pam Marshall and Charles Todd. I’m afraid that I can’t prove it. I need to talk to Nicholas Mardle. And I need your support.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  George did not go out with John to collect the remainder of the committee the next day. Molly wished that he had. He would not explain to her what was happening. The weather continued to be still and sultry and she felt tired and irritable. George had not slept. When she had gone to bed at midnight he was still in the common room, sat at the library table writing notes in his tiny, constricted hand. She had given him the jar, and he had seemed pleased. The police would be able to test the inside for chloroform, he had said. When she went to bed she had opened the window, but the room was still airless. She was too hot in her sleeping bag, not warm enough without it. Like the princess with the pea, she felt that she could sense the scratchy, institution blanket that covered the mattress, even through the down of her sleeping bag. She had wanted to get up and go down to him, to say: “Tell me all about it. Let me help you.” But he knew that she was willing to help him. She did not want him to ask for her help, simply to please her. He must organize the thing as he thought best. There would be a reason for his secrecy, and she must trust it. He had come to bed in the end, and undressed and climbed into his sleeping bag on the lower bunk. She could sense his tension, physically, as she had sensed the prickly blanket.

  “George,” she had said, softly, once, just so that he should know that she was awake if he should want her.

  But he was engrossed completely, going over and over the details of the case, reassuring himself that he was right. He had convinced Savage. That was easy. He was sure that the facts all pointed in one direction, but he could not leave the thing alone and go to sleep.

  “Do you think that he’s reliable?” he had whispered. “ Can I trust him to do what I want?”

  “Yes. He’s reliable. You can trust him.”

  Sleep had settled on her, eventually, like suffocation, but when she woke, very early, she could feel that George was still awake. He had been lying still, afraid to move in case he woke her. When he heard her stirring he got up and went out. He was back to share breakfast with them in the kitchen, and then he went out again, with John, leaving Elizabeth and Molly to wash up, but John drove out in the Land Rover, alone.

  “Do you know what it’s all about?” Elizabeth asked as she piled soapy plates on to the enamel draining board.

  “No,” Molly said, and she realized suddenly why George had had to keep his discoveries and his plans to himself. She would have found it impossible to lie convincingly.

  “If it stays calm I know that George is hoping to do some cannon netting. He’s never seen it done before.”

  “But why has he asked the committee to come to the island? It must be something to do with the murder?”

  She was curious. She was even enjoying the drama of it. She did not seem concerned, personally threatened in any way.

  At the quay nobody asked John what it was all about. He had been expecting awkward questions, questions which he would be unable to answer. He had performed certain tasks for George, but they seemed meaningless. Perhaps the passengers were frightened to express too much curiosity or interest, in case it was misinterpreted. Even when they had all climbed into the Land Rover, but John did not begin the slow drive down the slipway and on to the shore, nobody asked the reason for the delay. They talked, among themselves, about the weather, gardening, last night’s television. John was looking at his watch and at the lane from the main road. He was beginning to become concerned about the tide. Then he saw the small, red car through the gaps in the hedges. It was driving very fast. John knew what to expect, and prepared to enjoy the surprise of the guests. The car pulled up and Connibear got out of the driver’s seat. It must be his own car, John thought. There was a child’s seat in the back, and the shelf was untidy with toys. Nicholas Mardle climbed out of the passenger seat and pulled a rucksack after him.

  A
t first they were stunned. They seemed not to take it in, not only because his appearance was so unexpected, but because he seemed to have changed, to be a different boy. In less than a week he seemed to have become thinner, his skin seemed clearer. Perhaps they had remembered only a caricature, investing it with the dark significance of his supposed wickedness, and the reality had not changed at all. But even to John it seemed that it had.

  Mark responded first. He jumped out of the Land Rover, ran over to Nick, shook his hand, put his arm around his back. Then they were all out, all asking questions.

  Connibear pushed through the small crowd to the boy. Nick disengaged himself, turned to the policeman. They shook hands.

  “Thanks for the lift,” Nick said.

  “Least I could do. No hard feelings?”

  “No hard feelings.”

  “Good luck then.”

  He grinned, winked and walked back to his car.

  John hurried them all back into the Land Rover and drove towards the island.

  Elizabeth and Molly had coffee ready for the common room. Nick stood by the fire and fended off their questions.

  “Yes, I’ve been released. Savage finally believed my story. George persuaded him, I think. And then arranged for you all to be here for a sort of welcome-home party.”

  George smiled, but he said nothing. When they asked how he knew that Nicholas was to be released, how Savage had been persuaded, he was noncommittal.

  “Have they arrested someone else then?” Jerry asked.

  “I don’t think so.” Nick was too intoxicated by his freedom to worry about the implications of it for anyone else. “Apparently I gave them some information which pointed to the identification of the real killer. They can’t act on it yet, but I’m to be the star witness.”

  “Do the police still think that the murderer was one of us?” Jasmine Carson faced the communal fear with characteristic directness.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything. Savage came to see me today. He said that I was to be released, unconditionally, and asked if I would like to spend the day on the island. He said that George had arranged something special.”

  Paul Derbyshire gave a peculiar moan. “No,” he said. “I can’t stand it. It’s all going to start again. All the prying into our private lives. All the worry and unpleasantness. It’s too much.”

  “I think,” Jasmine said, crisply and disapprovingly, “that Nicholas has suffered more unpleasantness than we have, and that it would be rather churlish not to celebrate his release.”

  The doctor seemed not to hear.

  “I took the liberty,” George said, carefully changing the subject, “as the only committee member on the island, to ask John to prepare his equipment for cannon netting. I must confess that I’m fascinated to see it work, and the conditions today are superb. There have been massive roosts of redshank and oystercatcher all week. I take it that no one has any objection?”

  He looked directly at Jasmine Carson. She admitted defeat easily, smiled and shook her head.

  Molly had been as surprised as anyone by the appearance of Nicholas Mardle. It was hard now, as he stood by the hearth, the centre of attention, to believe in George’s image of him as a disturbed and miserable adolescent. Could four days in a police cell have changed someone so dramatically? She found it hard to accept. She supposed that she must trust George.

  As if in deference to Nicholas’s good fortune, they did not mention the murders or the police again. They began to plan the operation of cannon netting. John took charge.

  “George and I set the net earlier this morning,” he said. “You have to prepare it a long time before high water, so that the birds aren’t disturbed. We’ll fire the cannon when the birds are roosting, just after high tide. I’ll want everyone to keep well out of the way then. It can be dangerous.”

  “I hope that there will be no harm to the birds.” Jasmine had accepted that the operation would take place, but could not refrain from voicing her objections.

  “There shouldn’t be.”

  “How exactly does the thing work?”

  “The birds have been roosting on that flat, grassy area to the south of the Wendy House. That’s ideal for our purposes, because the halfway wall can act as cover. There’s a plunger, well behind the wall, which fires a series of projectiles to which the net is attached. The explosion, sends the big net over the birds. Then we’ll have to be really well organized to ring and process the waders as quickly as we can. I must stress how important it is to stay behind the cannons when we’re ready to fire. And do keep away from the equipment now, because it’s all set. I’d hate there to be an accident. Especially today. Now, is anyone interested in going round the traps before lunch?”

  High water was at three. Molly found that she was continually looking at her watch, counting the hours and the minutes until then. The tide, smooth and clear as baby oil, began to slide round the rocks at the north end of the island, but there were still three hours to go. She was beginning to guess something of what George was doing. What did he hope to achieve with the emphasis on the danger of the equipment? To tempt one of them to suicide? Or to murder? She approached him when they had finished coffee and no one could overhear.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

  He hesitated. “Nothing,” he said. “ There’s nothing to do now.”

  There was no more mention of the power of the cannon net, the fear of accident. They had beer at lunchtime, except Elizabeth. It seemed that she had stopped being sick, but that she did not want to drink “for the sake of the baby”. She spoke of the baby with reverence and joy. The others got a little bored by her obsession with her condition, but she seemed very happy.

  “I know,” she said. “ Nick can fire the cannon. After all, we’re here in his honour.”

  The afternoon moved slowly to Molly. She pictured it oozing forward like the oily water which now surrounded the island. As the tide came in the waders rose in swarms from the shore and circled in fantastic shapes around Gillibry. As the tide came in so did the cloud, but still there was no wind, not a breath of air.

  Perhaps she felt depressed because the others seemed in such a party mood. They carried on drinking after lunch. They sat in the common room and throughout the afternoon they built a pyramid of empty red beer tins. There was a lot of movement. Every so often they wandered out singly, or in groups, to empty the nets or check the wader roosts. Molly could not keep track of all the coming and going. She did notice that Doctor Derbyshire did not move at all, and that, like her, he seemed unable to enter the spirit of communal gaiety. He was drinking heavily, sitting by the fire, and his face was red. He hardly spoke. Jasmine Carson watched him, Molly noticed, not with disapproval but with concern. She went out to the traps very regularly, more often than anyone else. She would return to the common room and announce concisely the details of the birds she had caught. She was drinking too, but slowly, and she alone had a glass. Mark, John and Jerry were becoming rowdy in a good-natured, rather frantic way. They were planning a ringing trip to the Hebrides. John had been before and grew more and more enthusiastic in his description of the Western Isles. There was a long story about a visit to a whisky distillery. Nicholas looked on with an amused and adult detachment. George’s pile of red cans was as high as any of the others, but Molly knew that he had not drunk enough for the alcohol to have any effect.

  Then it was nearly three o’clock and they were all preparing to go out. Elizabeth came from the kitchen to be with them. They drifted, laughing and noisy, into the yard. Molly felt that she could not breathe. She had been drinking too, and the weight of the heavy, black clouds seemed to have settled on her head.

  Was anything, after all, going to happen, or would there be an anticlimax, a continuation of the party and the mutual distrust? Then it occurred to her that George might never be able to prove who had committed the murders, and the prospect of his failure was terrifying.

  It was a very high tide and th
e birds were roosting on the island proper because the shore, where they would usually have fed and rested, was covered by water. There were hundreds of birds on the rocks and the grassy slopes to the south of the Wendy House. They were noisy, restless. There were oystercatchers of black and white and orange, heavy grey knot and brown redshank. There was a smell of seaweed, of decay.

  They were intent, now, on catching as many birds as possible. John took charge. He sent Nick and George towards the Wendy House. The rest of them were spread along the wall. Molly could see that the plunger, the trigger which set off the net, was positioned right at the easterly edge of the wall, near the edge of the cliff, so that the firer could see round the wall to the birds, without being seen by them. Nick walked through the Wendy House garden and had reached the firing position. George seemed to have disappeared. Molly felt a mounting tension, even a panic. George’s failure to take up his position along the wall convinced her that something had happened. And she was certain that there was something wrong with the cannon. Where was George? He should be here, to prevent a tragedy. What should she do? Should she shout out, prevent the firing from taking place until he arrived? She had promised herself that she would trust him, and he had told her to do nothing, but perhaps there had been an accident, something more sinister than an accident. No one else seemed to have noticed his disappearance. That was not surprising. Each person was crouched now, as John had instructed them, behind the wall, and could only see the individual to the east or the west of him. They were still excited. There was a lot of giggling, stifled. Molly did as she was told, and hid too, leaning against the smooth boulders of the drystone wall. She felt the curves of the boulders against her body as she pressed against it. Elizabeth was about ten yards away on one side of her, Jerry Packham to the other. She did not know how the others had been arranged. She tried to stay calm. I’ve been imagining it all, she thought. They just want to catch some birds to ring them. Nothing can go wrong. John will have checked all the gear. He will know that it’s safe. But she felt the mindless terror and excitement of a child playing hide and seek, as the hunter approaches the hiding place. Then she saw John. He was running, bent double, along the base of the wall. She saw him stop and whisper to Elizabeth. He ran to her, and said: